Tremble for The Beloveds
by Sarah Rose Serena
Summary: It isn't how we thought it was. Not at all. They didn't know who they were messing with, didn't realize Tatia was too strong to take dying lying down. Mikael's hate sells his soul, indebted to a demon, and it sets things in motion. Klaus has Stefan under his control, humanity switched off, and Katherine has made a horrible mistake. A mistake Elena will be paying for into eternity.
1. Exordium

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**_Exordium_**

_Something borrowed, something blue. Something wicked, something new..._

* * *

><p><em>"I am the martyr during days of end. I never saw this coming, though I know my love is to blame. Choice versus fate, I do take. The weight on my shoulders will remain. Destined, I must accept my death. Yet I hold this against you."<em>

Like indented lines remembered on abused parchment, poignant and succinct words scarred the air around them long ago, a prophecy as spoken, never fully forgotten, never truly recalled.

_"You have forsaken all the love you have taken. Sleeping on a razor, there is nowhere left to fall. The scars you leave are marks on your soul. Your body is aching. Every bone is breaking. Nothing seems to shake it free. You just keep holding on."_

In life, there are certain patterns grooved into the very fabric of time. These paths have been followed before and will be again. For some, there is no escaping it.

_"Your soul is evil. Your heart is dark. Death is all you cradle. You admire light of a different kind. A pure touch you will never find. Every man desires. If they could see far enough inside, they would burn to spite."_

It's tragic, really.

_"Fallen under fire, you fight for your despised, knowing one day your love will lie on the line. Every player crowned king because no one is left to pawn. There is no true peace here, sweetheart. War is never cheap, dear. Love will never be near. You cannot hide it. All the world denies it. Open up your eyes. Let your demons thrive."_

* * *

><p>There is this dream she has, on very rare occasions, which leaves her tossing and turning within the clinging confines of twisted sheets. A violent and visceral paroxysm, this single secret surfaces from the deepest recess of her mind, an ageless knowledge. Fragments of a memory, it haunts her. When she wakes, she is exhausted and drained, and yet holds no conscious inkling of the reason. This plague is also her protection.<p>

_She sees a field of wildflowers, colors muted with winter and plants dormant, stretches out as far as the eye can see. In the distance, a jagged line of black forest borders this haven carved free of the darkness. As the rolling hills incline, earth appears to mingle with bright clouds._

_Falling skies are never a good sign._

_She stands on her own here, a solitary figure, what once held strong now wavering in balance and spirit. The pure white of her gown is tainted with seedy shades, flowing to the ground to cover her bare, bloodied, and muddied feet, toes sinking into charred soil. A gathering of clouds opens up and spills down upon her, adding even more weight to that which she carries. The dented broadsword hangs limply by her side but remains clutched fiercely in a hand with a fractured wrist. The pain, much like colors of the season, has muted by now._

_Echoes of the battle cries that had pierced this vacuum predawn still ring in her ears._

_Air crackles with static around her. Electricity builds. She feels it sticking to her skin, prickling fine hairs along her battered body, reminding this emptied vessel that real energy never ends, only transforms._

_Staring down with hazel eyes gone glassy, she watches droplets from the sky land on a patch of white roses around her. These are the very few which have avoided being trampled in the savage fray that has passed. What fell as crystalline mingles with the stains left on silk petals to become something dark and thick, something like lifeblood._

_Death also surrounds her for as far as the eye can see. A massacre of her own doing imprints on not only her mind but her soul, never to fade. It rains, hard and ferocious with a passion she can no longer kindle for, and the woman thinks the gods are not happy with her. Why should they be? She has failed them. She has failed them all._

_Next time, she will submit to fate without a fight._

_Next time, she will become the lamb._

Jarred from an ungrounded plane, she wakes to the rough alarm of "Elena!" Her brother is banging around in the bathroom a few feet away from her bedroom and their de facto guardian is calling for her from the kitchen downstairs. This is her life. Reality resettles and she clambers tiredly to her feet, determined for no comprehendible reason to continue on, like a good little soldier.


	2. Part I

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**_Part I_**

_A culmination of ferocious fates..._

* * *

><p>She knew this day was coming. From the very beginning, it was all but inevitable. Still, when the moment arrives, she has a hard time accepting how quickly the meager splash of sand in her hourglass has drained away.<p>

Up the walk to the Salvatore boarding house, a frisson of nerves sweep her spine. Since she was getting those tingly warning bells quite often as of late, her pace fails to falter in response, though she casts a net of apprehensive glances around her to be sure. Leaving the dwindling evening sun behind, she shrouds herself in shadows from brick, slowing her approach as she takes in the sight of that towering front entrance which awaits her. As she stands, feeling a sliver of trepidation creep through the numb veneer, the door eases itself inward just wide enough to pass through in an ominous invitation that should send her running.

Instead, she draws a bracing breath and ventures through the narrow opening.

Before she crosses the dim foyer, a din of scuffling interaction fills her ears. Scores of voices with varyingly harsh tones sling around the cavernous house, but distance and insulation muffles the distinction of words. She knows she will have to get closer to the source of activity if she wants to find out what is going on, despite her better judgment arguing the contrary.

Acutely aware of sealing her fate, she lets the noise lure her towards the library and is greeted by a crystal vase shattering against the rich wooden paneling over her shoulder. After ducking from the way, she gets a good enough look at what is transpiring inside to know the vase wasn't personal. In fact, it wasn't aimed at all, merely collateral damage.

There is a sharp moment where the last of those familiar voices weaving together separates itself, links with the owner in her mind, and Elena goes cold.

Klaus has at last returned. Of course he has.

The supposed love of her life stands under the nearest archway, leant casually against the polished woodwork, arms and ankles crossed, a solid force standing between her and her nightmare. Well, one of her nightmares.

When she enters, her steps sluggish with the dreaded reluctance of a condemned man walking the gallows, he adjusts the cant of his head to accommodate the new arrival, gives her a slow onceover with those disaffected eyes that shoot pangs of heartbreak through her chest every single time he turns them on her now. With her usual muster, she holds her head high and guards her expressive features to reveal nothing. Bored now, he shifts his attention back to the conflict at hand, dismissing her presence without word. Though hurtful, the gesture is telling.

Whatever the circumstance for this visit, she is an irrelevant factor.

Before she ventures past, however, she can't keep her gaze from flicking briefly over the bulge of his folded biceps. All that sculpted strength used to make her feel safe, protected, but now only leaves her with a wary sense of potential. If his new master wished it so, he could do so many awful things to her with that strength. Even without it, he could make her feel as if a dagger had rammed through her stomach. She remembers what it feels like, can compare emotional skewering to physical, and finds this sort much more difficult to bear. It takes loving the enemy to a whole new level.

How in the world did she get to this perverse point?

The man she loves is still in there somewhere. She believes it because she has to, because that belief keeps her trekking forward, steadies her determination. He's still near. He's only ... lost. They have all been lost once or twice. Lost, she can handle. So, no matter how horrible _this_ Stefan, how afraid he makes her, how hard he breaks her down, she refuses to give up until she's gotten hers back. Except in death, and even then sometimes, no one is lost forever. Only misplaced.

For one long disturbing moment, the scene she has walked in on is a little too surreal to accept as reality. Klaus has returned and has Damon by the throat, furious, positively livid, more agitated than she's ever seen him. His spoilt sister of an Original is lounged across a chaise by an oriel window, watching with a mixture of disinterest and humor.

Is it seeing her brother so ruffled that entertains her or just random violence?

"Do you have any idea what you've done?!" he accuses, powerful fingers clenching around Damon's larynx. His cadence is clipped with his temper, lilted accent roughened, and she finds the very sound of it makes her skin crawl.

The eldest Salvatore offers up his patented smirk, even though he has to work at it, what with being held off his feet as his windpipe is crushed. "Who knew all it took was one vampiric vampire hunter to get under your skin?" He winces out a mocking look. "Thought you were supposed to be indestructible. What's with the hissy fit?" A pause. "Or is this a daddy issue?"

Seething with disgust, Klaus tosses the strangled Salvatore away from him with a flick of his wrist, sending Damon smashing through an upper level balustrade. He skids into a bookshelf and gets buried beneath a pile of dusty old tomes.

There is something in his eyes which puts Elena in a state of preemptive shock.

Watching the Salvatore pick himself up like an insect crawling across his path, clenching his teeth with strained patience, the hybrid tells the room, "Mikael is more than you can hope to stand against, children. Perhaps you thought you were choosing the lesser of evils, taking sides this way, but I assure you ... you are very much mistaken."

An eloquently explicit speech attempts to explain to them all how destructive the Original hunter is, how indiscriminately destructive, fueled by self-loathing and pride and an intense hatred of all that reminds him of himself.

Switch loathing for love of oneself, and Elena can't see much difference between this Mikael character and Klaus himself. Other than the fact that only one has the coveted ability to end the other's existence. A fact like that doesn't exactly lend to unbiased viewpoints. But she holds her tongue, not wanting to direct that wrath onto her, knowing she probably wouldn't survive it, even with her value to him still somewhat relevant.

Instead, her eyes are drawn to the other woman in the room, and she is intrigued by the mixture of repressed terror written into her face and the mocking roll of her eyes offered to her brother behind his back.

Damon is saying something oppositional about it already being done, Mikael already being let loose, ending with a sarcastic _good luck with that_, and Stefan is adding in something about why Klaus has returned since none of them can help with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders, when Elena feels the hybrid's eyes focus on her.

_I've come to get my girl, of course_, she hears in her head, and panic closes her throat. But he only says, "There's nowhere to run."

No one has ever said anything so apropos in her life. Less than a heartbeat later, something crashes from the front of the boarding house. She recognizes splintering wood and wrenching joints. Rebekah leaps to her feet, eyes wide, and speeds in a blur between Stefan and Elena through the archway. Damon follows her at a slower pace. Stefan only shifts, listening more precisely than the only human in the house is capable of, and angles himself behind Elena. After all is said and done, part of his compulsion is still to safeguard her, and she has to remind herself that with strict and stern whiplash. But the hybrid never strays his gaze from her own.

The unwanted connection he can create has always unnerved her. When he was beckoning her closer, having just slaughtered her last remaining parental figure, it felt all kinds of wrong. Unfair. When he was forcing her boyfriend to attack her, it was cruel. Now, a sense of understanding arcing between them, it is just plain tragic. The sacrifice, she thinks of her final moments, her very first death, remembers the way he consumed her so completely. Feels the tangible pressure of those pure eyes fixed and can't breathe.

Nerveless fingers curve softly around the column of her throat, buried beneath layers of silky dark hair, and a palm seems to sear as it connects with fresh scar tissue. To him, she poses, "Why did you come back?" And silently, but no less clearly, _What were you doing while you were gone?_

He doesn't answer, of course, just an evanescent twitch of luscious red lips, but it's all she needs to know for certain there is something brewing. Something devastating.

Like an evil apparition, a presence registers behind her in the archway, and she sees the subtle yet stark shift in the hybrid, finds herself morbidly fascinated by that suddenly stormy cast to his features, unadulterated hatred burning in his eyes, a sentiment so rich with history, so blindingly intense, it can only be fueled by millennia of _hurt_. But then reality jars her free of observation, of unwanted realization, and she has no choice but to turn and face the strange. Behind her, a mere few feet away, what must be Mikael sidles to a halt, an air of cool untouchable atrocity she has come to associate with every new Big Bad she comes across. At least initially.

First it was Damon. Klaus the most recent. Now ... well, when only just exposed, it is impossible to be convinced there is anything more beneath the surface, anything _other_ than that sleek monster on top. Sometimes, though, no matter what she finds or how she is fooled, they will always be alien.

"Hello, Niklaus."

"Mikael."

It is not the creature that appears before her that drives her next state of emotion, however. He who is too immense at the moment in this scenario to be handled by such a feeble fragile human being. It is, surprisingly, the outward replica of herself that he drops to the floor at his feet like a broken ragdoll. And _this_ is something she can face.

Katherine has been butchered. Her chest is a bloody, sinewy, meaty mess. Her face is pale and slack, on the verge of desiccation, and the macabre sight gives the girl traumatic flashes of what will likely become of her too. She doubts she'll ever get over the oddness of such an experience, seeing a mirror image of herself in such drastic contrast.

Stricken, she falls to her knees by the corpse-like thing her quasi nemesis has become. That numb stasis she has curled within for the last few months shatters. To be sure, it is a most unexpected trigger. But this is just too much. She's been pushed too far. After all, the girl is and always will be an emotional creature, nothing any of them do to her can change that truth.

"What have you done to her?" she demands hotly, clutches unsurely at her dying or dead ancestor, pays no heed to the oldest most dangerous monster she has ever seen, who stands above her with an expression of mild amusement, mild disdain, mild interest.

In response to her accusing glare, he drops a still beating heart into her lap. But reflex kicks in and her hands sweep under the falling organ before it can land, leaving the girl cradling Katherine's quivering core. There is a second of stillness, of non-reaction, because this just doesn't make sense. Then it does and her gorge is rising and she is pressing her lips together in a tight line as fingers shake with the almost uncontrollable urge to thrust the vital organ away.

Horrified, she reels the disjointed pieces of herself into a bundle and forces it to try to put the _still freaking beating_ heart back in where it belongs, but gets caught up in blood and shredded tendons and stringy muscle, stuck between the rungs of a broken ribcage. It's a miracle she hasn't lost it yet. Or maybe she has, did a long time ago, and that's why she's able to hold herself together, because there is nothing left of what should be inside, nothing left to lose.

From somewhere distant and detached, she hears their voices volley up above her, passing through her as if she has lost corporeality. Mocking. Scathing. Wounded. Bitter.

"I see the Petrova curse still has a firm hold on you, son."

"I am not your son. Never was."

Hands coated slick with warm syrupy fluid, both tissue and tendon clinging to skin that it matches identically, genetically, yet still does not belong with, Elena pulls free of the horrific cavity, job accomplished, for whatever good it will do. And since when does it even matter to her whether her predecessor lives or dies? Very nearly, those same soiled hands rise to her face, almost swipe over sharp and stinging features.

When a strangled sound vibrates in her throat, Mikael casts her a falsely pitying look, saunters past her, but she is too absorbed to acknowledge the relief she feels that he still treats her accordingly in regards to the inconsequential player she was always supposed to be, though instinct tells her this is a fleeting condition.

Her eyes are drifting unfocused when the absent trio flit across her thoughts. However, before she has time to wonder, she is tugged back to attention by a spatial shift of tension in the room, ratcheting up a notch from subdued to on edge, and she knows it is coming any second now. Their exchange is mostly white noise but what she hears of it might have given her a whole new outlook on her greatest nightmare if she'd been in slightly better shape.

"All I need is to be rid of you," he says, deceptively soft, with a look that would suit a venomous spit of words instead.

The elder isn't fazed, isn't fooled, and digs the thorns of resentment in deeper with his dismissal. "Is it worth it, boy? _No one_ cares for you. Now that you have your hybrids, your abominable brethren, has anything truly changed? You're still _weak_. You're still alone. You'll always be alone."

Her hazel gaze fixates closely enough to see the telltale shine of bloodshot jade eyes, even as he dons a mask of dangerous joviality. "Shall I show you?"

Though he flings an arm out in demonstration, and a sudden unnatural gust of wind tears the drapes from the windows, revealing a stretch of grassy yard beneath starry sky cluttered with a swarm of waiting figures, shadowed by the tower of the nearby treeline, Mikael doesn't even grace a glance, so unconcerned with what his son has amassed.

"Who do you have, Niklaus?" he queries, embedding an altogether different dagger in the hybrid's chest, a much more profound wound. His focus slides to Elena for a pointed moment and then out the windows as an afterthought. "What do you have, Niklaus? Other than the blind loyalty you have garnered by force."

_Truth hurts worst of all_, she thinks, rising slowly to her feet, breathless, as the faint stream of her tormentor's tears catch the flickering light of the fireplace flame and carve out an incomprehensible prism. Family will do that to a person. Human or monster.

"I have an army."

"You have _nothing_. No one. And you never will. That is how it will always be, son. So what is it worth?"

"Stop." The whispered command slips from her lips before she realizes it's her voice that splinters the jagged draw. Once she does, slippery fingers slide against one another, and something disorienting inside her clicks into place. Stronger this time, she tells them, "If you're going to try to kill each other, get it over with already. But stop this right now. I won't stand here listening to you take cheap shots just because your home life sucked."

There is a distinct separation then between the Elena she herself knows and the one in the driver's seat at the moment. That piece which she is familiar with stands apart, hearing herself as if foreign and nonsensical. Made even worse to this Alice effect is the startled look of such longing that flickers ever so briefly in Klaus's features before it is replaced with a much more characteristic contempt, be it without his typical humor.

Whereas his figurative father takes her in with a new light in his eyes, mild interest dawning into something more useful, far more dangerous, and claps his hands together to break the dragging sense that has fallen upon them all. "Well, your doppelgänger does have a point. I did indeed come with a purpose in mind this evening."

Charming features twisted bitterly, Klaus spreads his arms wide and drawls liltingly, "Then by all means, _father_. Take your best shot."

There must have been some unspoken signal in the gesture, she is sure, because the very next second all those undraped windows implode inward, raining glass across the suddenly windy room. As she throws herself to the floor, shielding from the worst of it, Elena recognizes the monotone cadence of chanting outside.

_Not just hybrids then._

Brutal sounds of battle carry over the ruckus of witches and their powered energy, but she doesn't try to sort through the din, just keeps her head down and crawls up the steps of the archway. Once she's escaped the funneled zone, she clambers to her feet and runs like hell, intent on putting as much distance as possible between her and the epic struggle in her wake.

Shockingly, she makes it all the way to the front foyer before colliding with another body in motion, this one barreling in the opposing direction. They get tangled, spinning, and crash together to the hardwood.

"Bonnie?" she exclaims in a rush of breath.

From her spot, the dark-skinned witch heaves in relief and says, "There you are."

"What are you doing here?"

The way her grim face gets even grimmer warns Elena before the words are voiced. "Tyler is out there with the others. He's been called, I guess. Must be a sire thing."

Panic thick enough to choke on lodges in her throat. "Caroline?"

"No. She wasn't with us."

"Thank God for small mercies," she murmurs distractedly, acquiescing when the witch takes her by the hand and leads her out onto the brick portico. They don't go any farther than that at first, taking in the situation, huddled down out of sight. "How many?"

The witch's grip on her flexes and her face shutters before she controls her reaction. "Too many. The coven is working a really strong incantation around the boarding house."

Elena is bewildered, incredulous, but most of all petrified of how this night will turn. "Doing what?"

"I'm not sure." Her friend's face strains with consternation. "It almost feels as though they want to trap us all within the circle they've drawn. It encompasses a good portion of the woods but is definitely focused on the house. Or something in it, anyway." Eyes screw shut as she reaches out with her own power, testing the limits, trying to find an open space to slip through. "And to sap at Mikael's strength."

"Great," she grouses, slipping her sticky hand free of Bonnie's at last as her circulation cuts out, though her friend doesn't appear to mind the gore. "Plus the whole _surrounded by an army of hybrids_ thing can't possibly help the situation."

As she'd wanted, her wry comment makes the troubled witch's lips tug at the corners. "They might not bother with us." Glancing sideways, their eyes lock and understanding passes between the girls. "Let's just make a run for it."

_Find higher ground_, her logical mind insists against the primitive impulse to not flee, to not abandon her loved ones, wherever they may have gotten off to. _Don't cower down_.

"Elena?"

Lips thinned, she gives her friend an encouraging if not terse nod, lurches to her feet. Together, they sprint a mad dash off the portico and across the grass. But the two don't make it farther than ten feet before Elena finds herself hauled backwards, a hand over her mouth to smother her scream, back pressed to a hard chest, and she is pulled into the shadows that ring below the overhang of eaves. The only thing that stills her is the fact that Bonnie is right beside her in the very same predicament. And if the witch isn't rebelling with magic, their interlopers must not be as threatening as the rest.

Stefan.

When she is released a moment later, she whirls to face not two but three vampires. A faint sliver of pleasure, however inappropriate, warms her at the sight of Klaus's sister looking so beside herself. The hand Damon lets linger down her trembling arm unfurls unwarranted comfort. "Where have you guys been?"

"The hybrids were keeping them busy," Bonnie answers instead, shaking herself free of the blonde Original.

Almost absently, she skates her gaze to Rebekah and wonders, "And you?"

"I want no part of this."

Damon shoots her a scrunched look. "Then why are you still here?"

"That's my brother in there. And my father."

Confused, with a dose of unhealthy curiosity, Elena asks, "You wanna stay close but you won't intervene. You are just going to let them kill each other?" And when it earns her a sharp look from Damon, a canted head from Stefan, an arched brow from Bonnie, she feels the need to add defensively, "Not that that's not what we want. Because it is."

The blonde folds her arms. Crossly. "What good would it do to get myself killed?"

_Real prize, this one here_, she can't help but think, sarcasm filling her heart.

"How about we move this party to a safer distance?" is Damon's next remark.

Bonnie huffs, "Sounds good."

Before any of them can move an inch, a swirl of wind blows through the side of the moonlit yard, and Klaus and Mikael go flying in a blurred fury of violence. The two meld into the darkness of the woods in their struggle, hybrids parting like the Red Sea at will, and both girls allow themselves a unified sigh of relief. Prematurely.

Compelled to be loyal, not expressly ordered to stand down, Stefan is leaving her side in pursuit before Elena realizes what has happened. Once she feels his desertion, she feels her entire world tilt into a new angle, changing parameters of her situation. Thoughtless, her body propels forward, giving chase. No one tries to cut into her path.

"What fresh hell is this?" the other Salvatore brother quips, following at her heels, along with the rest of their makeshift caravan. Not able to stand being left behind alone, even Rebekah trails in their wake.

By the time she bursts into the clearing the Originals have managed to find amidst their destruction, Elena is within range to witness yet not near enough to affect the way Stefan drops to his knees, falling forward, splintered branch jammed in his spine. Frozen, she feels her chest constrict in acute pain as afterimages of the ritual scour her eyelids. Déjà vu leaves her paralyzed for several heartbeats too long. When she snaps out of it, Rebekah is there, knelt beside him, yanking the wood from his back as she would lint.

Damon is at her back, a heady pressure of restrained ferocity, and his strength lends to her own, equaling out two very different types. She half expects him to throw her over his shoulder and get her the hell outta Dodge, protest or none, but all he does is keep on her heels when she strides toward his brother, picking himself up off the ground.

Crushing hands braced at his shoulders, a vicious kick to the sternum sends Klaus halfway through a nearby birch, base of the tree torn asunder under impact, while hybrid only rolls himself free of the remains and thrusts to his feet. In the briefest moments of his distraction, however, Stefan makes to step forward, compelled to prevent the Original from pressing advantage. There is a reason fearsome Klaus has spent his long life running from such a creature, though. The ultimate father, oldest of his kind, Mikael predicts such intentions, acts to dispel them before interference can become more than nuisance. In a calculated motion, he breaks off another gnarled branch within reach, pivots with a strength almost unimaginable in its ease of effort.

What is supposed to be a swift elimination is marred only by intuitive reflex, of some sort of ageless instinct, aided by a heartbeat of premonition.

Even though Rebekah is still beside him, and virtually immortal, and Damon is merely a step in position behind them, it is _Elena_ who gets in the way. Elena who turns herself in time, narrowly, as if spinning into an awaited embrace, and deflects the fatal projectile aimed for Stefan's heart in the only way she is quick enough to, placing hers in its path. Too soon on mindless impulse for her brain to think better of the motion.

In a split second, her whole body jerks, and the violent chaos all around her falters.

When the wood pierces through her sternum, going in between her shoulder blades, angled upward, mangling a hole through her chest and her heart and her breast, she is face to face with the supposed love of her life. There isn't even any pain at first. Just a shocking sense of discomfort, of invasion, and trauma. Wide and white, her eyes find his. The strangled screams and fragmented hollers all around them fade, until it is simply her and him and that frozen, disjointed, splintered look on his face, like he can't understand why she would do this, like he can't understand what he feels as she gasps in slow agony, slipping from his useless arms to collapse on the ground at his feet, _her_ fading fast with little dying spasms, _him_ too shell-shocked to hold on.

As she chokes on her own blood, fluid filling her lungs, heart using its last few beats to pump it up and out her mouth, spilling down the edges, motion comes to a standstill. The weight of such a shock falls heavily on all of those around. Dangerous implications penetrate the inertia. And she is gone before any of them can act.


	3. Part II

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**_Part II_**

_My love is worth the world...  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>Still standing in the midst of a riddled battlefield, bodies strewn everywhere at once, rain pouring and blood spilling to no end, she drifts. The ruthless ploy to bind Niklaus from his power, from his very nature, and sacrifice her in the process has been thwarted, for however long it takes the smoke to clear and those left standing to recollect. She is neither hopeful nor naïve enough to think the conflict will die today with those she has slain in her resistance.<em>

_And she cannot be grateful for a momentary victory as this yet. Collateral damage is far too great to permit such an emotion._

_Gazing in desolation at the aftermath of her hollow triumph, she is unable to pull herself away. Despair has her in its cold clutches and it is merciless. She is frightened of moving on from here, of finding other truths beyond this secluded wreckage, even more losses to grieve upon. Who has survived the night? And what shall be left of them all? Questions ping her benumbed mind. Answers sting her aching soul._

_Despite fears of the future, it is knowledge of the past which steels her still, webs her in intangible bindings, leaving her frozen and bereft. Lost._

_The wolves had chosen to descend from the mountains as the village turned against the abominations of nature, her lover's forsaken kin. With the culmination of years of simmering tensions, alliances forged and others crossed, varying intentions weaving into one single horrific outcome, she was finally forced to betray her own kind, her brethren. An act she had forsworn never to resort. Perhaps an inevitable choice._

_Because of it, her once warm and wild heart wilts._

_Yet when a figure emerges from the border of woods, drab streaks of dawn lighting his weary features, she rotates around, an undeniable tug in the core of her very being, and she sees Niklaus, alive and intact, a startling spark of life banishes the chill._

_The two see one another at once, eyes lock on magnetism, each realizing their love has survived in the same pulsing beat. Nerveless fingers let the stone hilt of her sword slip away at last. It clatters unnoticed to damp earth. Breathless, she jolts into motion, spiked with adrenaline, and runs across the distance as he follows suit, drawn together. Halfway, she jumps into his arms a millisecond before their bodies are set to collide in a rough rush of need. To feel for themselves the other is still here. To reassure their hope._

_As they sink slowly to their knees, still tangled, clutching and holding with ferocity, there is peace and relief and an overwhelming sense of the same gratitude she had only moments before been too ashamed to accept._

_He has his face buried deeply in the curve of her neck, in her messy honeyed mane, when she finds her voice. "I thought for sure you had perished." It is but a raw rasp of her normally dulcet cadence, wrenched with emotion, and makes his fingers dig into her where he grasps, arms fiercely tight around her trembling body. "Last time I saw you, Niko, it seemed the flames of hell had swallowed you whole. Love, how did you escape the witches?"_

_"__Shh," he murmurs thickly, pulling back just enough to find her hazel eyes, to brush her face clean of blood and hair and tears and raindrops, before his torn hands cradle her reddened cheeks, brow resting against her own. After a fragile moment, both gathering a semblance of calm, he speaks, and his tone is steadier, yet no less fractured. "The village has burnt to the ground. There is nothing left."_

_"__The witches?"_

_"__Gone. Some have survived."_

_"__My pack..." she begins, trails off brokenly, knowing not how to finish her thought._

_As he always has, her hybrid intuits her turmoil, her need, and urges her chin up to catch her gaze with his piercing stare. "I know." And then calculatedly lighter, he adds, "You were magnificent. More than usual." The attempt to lessen impact is vain at best._

_Wavering imperceptibly, she queries, "Your siblings?"_

_As she had known he would, Niklaus stiffens against her. "I cannot say."_

_"__Oh, Niko." Soothingly lilted, carried on a soft sigh, she exclaims it again, arms curved over the rigid shape of his shoulders, fingers digging into corded muscle, creating a circle with her body, her embrace, until he is completely enveloped. Eyes flutter shut as her lips press to the dirty curvatures of his features, lines sharp and skin taut, crystalline irises in stark relief to his boyish cast. The hands that cradle her face slide farther, fisting in locks, and he forces her mouth against his own, a hungry jolt of intensity triggered by her gentility. One arm snakes her waist as he leans forward, desiring, taking, devouring, keeping her from falling away from him when her spine bends. Fire ignites in her nerves, warmth of it flooding her veins in a rich coursing rhythm which makes her writhe yearningly against him, a sudden wave of desperation unwilling to be denied._

_In the heat of the moment, in their shared relief and grief, passion sweeps them away._

* * *

><p>The truth is much more complicated than the lies we tell ourselves. <em>Always<em>. There is no switch that can be flipped. That is truth. It's all about psychology, all about repression, what you choose to bury, what you allow to remain, but it never goes away. Not truly. It's there. It's just buried so damn deep you can't often find it. Humanity isn't something that can be dismissed and reclaimed at will. It is essential to everyone. Simply because it gets twisted sometimes, perverted into something wrong or misguided, doesn't mean it has gone away. Our humanity is always with us.

It's our love that ebbs and flows.

"_Elena_!" is echoed through the shrouded trees, varyingly shocked or anguished cries of persisting disbelief, and one stunned whisper too low for even preternaturally enhanced ears to catch. As it resounds, a more guttural cry rips through the air, one of pain, fury, as Mikael contorts unnaturally, hitting his knees. Since the hybrid is still splayed where he left him, amidst the splinters of the birch, it is surprise which reigns from the attack.

On the other side of the clearing, Bonnie has fallen to her knees as well, clutching at the trunk of an oak, a failing lifeline, as her watering eyes dart between her best friend laid out in death and the pompous monster who brought her there. One hand stretches in his direction, hurling another burst of magic, choked sobs wracking her slight frame. She lashes out again, and again, until blood trickles from her nose over quivering lips and the enraged Original gains a threshold for the intangible punishment.

He blurs for her, fingertips itching to snap her neck, before Damon slams into him from the side, element of surprise his only advantage, which lasts less than a second. "Stefan!" he yells for help, as the Original pins him, but his brother is still frozen in his place above the dead girl, unable to tear his not so vacant anymore gaze away.

The witch sends another ripple of harmful energy at him, trying to blast him away, but he only shudders this time, shrugging it off, and her strength gives out.

None of what is about to happen, of what each of these players intends, matters now. Because in the span of a few sharp moments for them, something pivotal has occurred somewhere else, a plane where time is much less influential.

An almost inhuman shriek thrums against their eardrums, shaking the foundation of woodland earth beneath them, sending shivers up their spines. In the distance, back at the boarding house, dozens of hybrids pique back to breathless attention. Stefan drops heavily to his knees. Bonnie ceases her sobbing. Damon freezes. Even Mikael hesitates in his reach for another makeshift stake to turn and look over his shoulder at the source of such a shattering sound.

Elena.

Face twisted in sheer agony, she rears, arms spread wide, back arching off the ground, after her corpse has flooded with life and she returns to the world with one violent jerk that devolves into a fit of sporadic convulsions, a jagged gasp and a jarring scream. Within the fiery throes of a fleeting torment, she shifts onto her side, contorts herself, reaching behind her back with a shaky hand, gripping at a protruding branch, ripping it free with no hesitation at all, too mindless to be afraid, while her cheek presses into soil and her other hand digs futilely into the earth, striving for something to hold onto.

Once the crude weapon is out, her frantic energy fades, leaving just a spasming girl lying bloody and broken in the dirt. Lips fall apart, mouthing soundless incoherencies, and eyes shutter in half-lidded delirium.

An unfocused gaze skates across her view of vision and snags on the hybrid who has stilled not so far away, watching her in fascination like the rest. For just a brief moment, a suffocated breath, her delirious gaze zeroes in and the haze nearly clears from her eyes, confusion and a half formed plea forming there, and he hears a rasp of a whisper. "_Niko_."

A tone he hasn't heard for centuries, millennia even, and there's something about the way he reacts, something essential. _Tatia_, he thinks, despite himself. You can see it, if you are paying attention, you can see him think it. For just a split second, the very thought of her flashes across his drawn features, before that expression shutters with common sense and a healthy dose of disbelief, of lifetimes of cynicism.

Whatever came over her passes almost as quickly. She rolls onto her massacred back, arms splayed wide again, and tilts her face skyward, mouth open in a silent scream. Murmurings fall from her lips, voice suddenly strong again, urgent. "Close your eyes."

"Elena—"

Arching higher, she cries, "SHUT YOUR EYES!" It ends on a scream, one not so silent this time, even as a burst of white shine explodes from inside of the girl, spiraling out to light up the darkness. A blast so bright, so sharp, so pure that literally it burns, it blinds. When it dissipates, only a few beats later, half the clearing has been scarred by the bath. A gathering of powerful beings have been knocked off their feet, eyes shielded obligingly, all except the emotional wreck of a witch, who had been too terrified, too mesmerized by the explosion to look away.

"Oh, God!" she exclaims, releasing her hold on the oak to fall forward into the ground, unsteady fingers grazing in panic over her face, where blood tracks from her dark eyes, now whitened, sight irrevocably marred. "My eyes."

"_Jesus fucking Christ_," is all Damon can huff into the collective bewilderment.

Before the dust can settle into stilled silence, Elena rises upright from her fatal sprawl, her abused body now fresh and unharmed, her expression smooth and alien, exuding an unnerving tranquility amidst the tattered scene around her. The first one she takes in is the one nearest.

Stefan is knelt in front of her, unmoving all this time, caught in the tearing grips of his internal dilemma. Head canted, she absorbs his presence, his state, and leans forward, presses one palm gently into his chest, almost as if she is possessed.

A tingling sort of warmth awakens, beginning in her palm, delving deep inside of him, coiling around the core of his being. It happens in an instant. A faint glimmer sparks at her contact, rippling over him, before it is gone. With it, his turmoil has been taken. Shaken, he falls back on his haunches, and then his backside, comprehension dawning. When his eyes find hers, his expression is etched with awe. Pure and simple awe.

He feels ... unburdened.

As if he has been pardoned, or forgiven, or set free, and his heartbreak mends at the breathtaking sight of Elena alive. Words can't convey it. But he tries. "_Elena_, what—"

With a small smile, a radiant knowing expression, she says, "It's alright."

After cleansing Stefan, she rises gracefully to her feet, draws in a bracing breath, because she knows things now, understands things, and has made a decision. Impassive, she turns to Mikael. "This was a mistake. We never should have woken you."

But when she glides across the distance, slowly reaches towards him with that same glimmering hand that has done something inexplicable to the young vampire, a gesture which might disarm him, or desiccate him, his bemused intrigue shatters, and he lashes. On his feet now, Damon forgotten, he makes her head snap aside, chestnut locks flipping. Blood spurts from the corner of her mouth. He hesitates, caught off guard by her lack of flying under the pressure of his strength, of the way her balance fails to even sway.

"Get away from her," the elder Salvatore manages to hurl at the Original's back, but it is halfhearted, since he too is not immune to the astonished wonder of what transpires.

Apathetic to it all, she swipes a thumb across her lower lip, coming away red.

Rather than react as Elena would, her head swivels back to him slowly, even languidly, letting her tousled locks slip out of the way of her face, of her eyes, which adopt a glint of sadistic thrill, a look foreign to the kindhearted girl. She gives him an insidious smile, like his strike was exactly what she was waiting for, and it was, because that is the deal she has made. "First blood spilt," she drawls, edged like a knife, smoky voice nearly unrecognizable, and it is clear Elena is no longer in control as she tips her head, sends a mocking look. "Why, thank you, Mikael." She waits just long enough to see his eyes flash apprehension, every trace of smug superiority vanished, before she pivots. A roundhouse kick knocks him yards across the clearing where he smashes into an ancient pine, cracking the base. Another dark smile unsettles her honeyed features. "This is going to be fun."

* * *

><p><em>He has killed half his family to protect her, and himself, lost the other half eternally, yet it feels worth nothing. Remnants of the witches remain and are more determined than ever to perform the binding ritual. A new warning arrives each day. So much death. So much loss. For what? His father's pride. The catalyst.<em>

_Rebekah. Elijah. Kol. Finn. Mother. Father. Their family has been torn shreds._

_Moons pass from that fateful nightfall and the sky's cries only worsen in ferocity. Servants of nature take it as a sign to try again, try harder, do whatever is necessary to accomplish what they are certain must be done to reset the balance. Soon._

_Having forsaken her pack, Tatia has no haven to seek. Only her love. And remorse grows inside of her with each passing day, seeds of doubt planted firmly, her conviction for their actions wavering into a resigned sense of surrender. The only thing which keeps her from giving herself over to the witches to make things right is her hybrid. No matter what she believes, she cannot willingly condemn him to such a fate. Though it makes her weak in her eyes, ruled by her heart rather than her sense, she won't desert her mate._

_Despite her resolve, however, some things are inevitable._

_Because of his brother's betrayal, one of the few who had chosen his side, during one moment lulled by false complacency, Niklaus falls. Snared securely in a witch's trap, he is powerless against his enemies. Presented with a flawed choice, Tatia gives herself over for the seal of the curse, as she was always meant for, in order to spare his life. After all, she had promised the gods._

_This time, she is not the warrior wolf._

_This time, she is the sacrificial lamb._

* * *

><p>"Come now, dearie. Is that all you've got?" Mikael taunts, staggering painstakingly to his feet with a biting grin, where blood has smeared his sharpened teeth. Before his next attack stirs the trees, he slings another verbal assault, meant to offset her, unaware that his opponent is beyond such things now. With a malicious glance at his son, who watches them in morbid fascination, undecided as to his own desires for intervention, he jibes, "Your template was much more impressive."<p>

The creature controlling Elena only chuckles. Canting her head, she crooks a finger in mocking invitation. When he surges, she spins through a sidestep, avoiding his first reach while positioning herself to evenly meet the next. Dodging his blurred attacks with inexplicable fluidity, she lets him get winded, lets his frustration rise to affect his movements, before she makes it obvious she is merely toying with the Original.

He lands a glancing blow and backs her up against an old oak, knocks all the air from her lungs with a grunt, and fists a hand in her hair. Just as he goes for her throat with an animalistic impulse, showing his true colors in his outburst, Damon and Stefan advance, only to be stopped by a coldly amused look from over her attacker's shoulder, her hand splaying at his jaw, shoving him away with impossible ease.

When he crashes onto his back in fallen foliage, Mikael catches her gaze in time to witness those warm hazel irises bleeding into inhuman quicksilver. As comprehension smoothes his features, a satisfied smile flickers at her reddened lips. "You."

"Me," she retorts with a happy bounce, swaying in an approach that _looked_ flirty but _felt_ menacing. "I told you there were prices to be paid." Pausing for impact, she bends for a closer proximity, propping one heel on his crooked knee, keeping him down, and wets her lips before a lilting drawl. "Guess what? It's time to collect."

Fingers dancing teasingly, she almost lays a hand on him, and gets her wrist twisted into the wrong direction in response, grinding teeth as her rotator cuff tears. A knee to the small of her back forces her forward towards the ground.

"Well," she huffs, thrusting herself up to avoid his next assault. "That was just rude."

Vicious, verging on snapped, Mikael lunges for her throat again. But she flips herself out of range in a back handspring and comes upright in time to catch him in the groin with an upswing of her knee. Before he can recover, she swivels around him, sweeps out the back of his knees, and he drops onto their caps. With a deep exhale, she circles to his front again, digs bruising fingers into a shoulder to keep him where she wants him to be.

"Please don't suck all the fun out of this," she quips, pilfering his jacket pockets with her free hand, knee pinning the other shoulder, until she finds what she's looking for. "You have had way longer than I intended to give you, thanks to that meddling witch, and I'm actually a tiny bit entertained by how you managed to evade me. But our game has run its course."

"I haven't finished yet," the Original argues, casting a seething look towards his son, and barters, "But I've found him now. Just let me—"

"Nope," she interjects, popping her syllable for blithe effect.

Mikael snarls, surging up against her, only to be shoved back down with an eye roll. "We had a deal."

Brow rising high, she snaps, "One which you broke the second you got your witches to weasel your little brats from my reach."

He bares his bloodied teeth again. "That was only for insurance."

"What are you talking about?" Klaus wants to know, a dangerous sort of quiet having fallen over his countenance. "What deal did he make with you regarding my siblings?"

The creature inhabiting Elena only smirks. "That's up to Daddy to share."

"Father?" comes hesitantly from Rebekah.

Mikael only shifts himself from them all, effectively rejecting his children, but the taut look of pained longing in his eyes makes his captor chuckle.

Lifting the stake she's found on him for inspection, she purses her lips and singsongs, "Wood from the famous white oak. Well, what do you know?" Then, tossing it to Damon, she commands lightly, "Hang onto that for me."

Not altogether unexpectedly, Klaus blurs into motion as the young vampire gets hold of the stake, going for it. But he has to pass around Elena to do so, and her palm slams against his chest before he can reach Damon, defying physics. An immovable force colliding with another albeit unexpected immovable force should render each other null. Theoretically.

Regardless, she stops him cold. Their eyes lock and she gives him a grin, tsking softly, a glint in her gaze, as if to tease, _Naughty boy_. In an offhanded shove, she thrusts him backwards, letting a pine catch his careen.

The dumbfounded shock on his face melts almost instantly into enticed wariness.

Focus fixed again on the knelt Original, a syrupy expression curves her mouth before she cups his fractured jaw, forces his face up towards hers, and a glimmer arcs across her skin like live electricity, heats her palm, coiling into him. As the burn begins to spark, a growl of pain resounds, urging Rebekah forward with a cry of, "_Father_!"

It is Klaus who wraps his arm around her, swinging her back, keeping her out of it, while his attention is even more rapt on what is unfolding than the rest of the onlookers. But the split second of distraction is plenty enough for the ultimate Original to try for an escape. Almost enough to make him succeed. Bucking off her knee, he pivots upward, leverages his weight into hers. Instead of jumping her again, however, he attempts to cast her aside this time, up on his feet to run. With an irritated grunt, she hooks an ankle on his thigh before he can, even as she falls, bringing him with her, so she can meld her fall into an offensive maneuver. Heel planted to his stomach, she flips him, using his own momentum against him, and follows the motion to land straddling his chest.

Pinned beneath her, Mikael is helpless to avoid the flattening of her glimmered palms on his chest, shoulder to shoulder, which ignite almost immediately, burning him alive. Just barely, she manages to leap out of range as flames erupt, yet not without scorching her inner thighs.

No matter. The injury will heal soon.

Six people surround a fire as it dwindles, leaving nothing but ashes soaked into earth, what once was a being who fathered an entire race. Varying states spread the gathering. All stunned. Some relieved. Some satisfied. Some devastated. One faintly amused.

Damon is the first to break the deafening silence that has descended. "Nifty trick."

"Isn't it?" the creature inside Elena replies, quicksilver eyes fading back to rich hazel. Swiping at the trickling blood from her chin, she sniffs sharply, says brightly, "Well, now, where were we?"

"Elena?" comes an insecure call from Bonnie, who is crouched by her oak, still blinded.

It is Stefan who interrupts, his voice flat, numb, "That's not Elena."

Flashing them a wolfish grin, she amends, "Not completely."

"What have you done with her?" he demands.

"Sweet girl has done this to herself," she answers, a disinterested shrug making her slender frame ripple with foreign motion. When she makes a move for Damon to retrieve the white oak stake, though, she falters, an odd look crossing her face.

Sensing the sudden influx of turmoil in the energy around her, Bonnie calls out again. "What is it? What's happening?"

No one answers. Because no one knows.

"Time to go," Elena murmurs, her voice a soft pattern on the breeze, back to normal. Clutching at her core, another glimmer awakens in a palm pressed just below her heart. Her body begins to rebel against her. Tone swinging drastically, she rasps, "Not anymore, sweet child. I like you too much to leave now."

Quietly, subdued as she reads the reverberations around her, Bonnie stretches out a shaky hand, fingers tracing over invisible grooves of energy, says, "Somebody help her."

Turning to the witch, a struggle to rip his eyes from the girl, Stefan asks, "How?"

As her fingertips bite into the bark of a birch, Elena sinks to the ground, furled in on herself in jerky spasms. She fights, trying to eject the parasitic presence, but it starts to tear her apart. When she convulses, drops onto her back, eyes jumping beneath their lids, lips parted on strangled pants, arms sprawled wide like a crucifix, it is Rebekah who first advances the distance. Grimly, she pulls a dagger, steel blade glinting in silvery moonlight. And it is Klaus who first notices this, who steps in front of her, halting his sister's intent.

"Oh, no. It is too late for that," he tells her, a deceptively low voice which caresses her skin in a mockery of gentle persuasion, a quelling threat. "Far too late."

Trying to talk sense into him, she grips her hilt tighter, grounds out, "Bloody hell, Nik. You know what will happen if that abomination is permitted to spread."

_Abomination_. A word their father labeled _him_ with. All the while, he was making deals with _true_ abominations of nature. Like that creature inside of Elena. The hypocrite.

Only once more does she try to sidestep him, stills when he encircles her armed wrist with a crushing band of fingers, and their gazes lock in a heated exchange. Though easily he could, he doesn't incapacitate her, only stares her down, dispassionate. She sighs. Together, brother and sister rotate to face the girl, gaze down upon her with extreme contrast of expressions, of thoughts, as she blinks up at them like a swimmer imprisoned in a riptide might blink up at the sun, straining to be free of the suffocating film which separates them, still spasming. Unbearably, it resembles asphyxiation.

There are calls from the distance, desperate and pleading calls for her, bleeding into one another, incomprehensible, heartbreaking. It all means the same. "Elena. Elena. Elena." However faded, voices she hears should help her, emotions she feels from them should lend her strength, but the shadow has her enveloped, its dark tendrils filling up her limbs and overpowering her will. And then quietly, seriously, contemplatively, comes a solitary murmur of "Tatia?"

Something else stirs, mingling through the heavy pressure of the shadow, diluting it, and she finds she isn't fighting for supremacy alone anymore. The other _her_ has merged, bargain she made revoked, promise she gave upheld.

As her internal struggle shifts, gaining advantage, Klaus lowers himself to the ground, lifts her just enough to slide beneath her, to cradle her in his lap. A hiss of choked breath escapes her and she shudders again, startled but relieved by the embrace. In hard protest, both Stefan and Damon start forward, protectively, defensively, only to hesitate unsurely when the hybrid bares his wolfish fangs in warning as his eyes flash gold with something _other_ inside him and a breathy whimper rises instinctively from distanced Elena. In a gentler but no less intense manner, he takes her by the jaw and forces her face towards his own, so he can connect with the creature slithering within her. The _leviathan_. Hazel irises go quicksilver, another choked hiss vibrating in her throat, and he warns it, "You _will_ leave my girl. Now."

Once it subsides, retreating deep inside, he is left with the eerie soul baring stare of the girl. The very instant the shadow loosens its clutch on her, an irritated surrender, a sighed thought of _fuck it_, he feels the presence fade, sees the girl surface from her battle, exhausted from her resistance.

"It's gone," is what breaks the tumultuous quiet which falls afterwards, an exclamation of bewildered relief from Bonnie, her voice raw. "Whatever it was, it's gone now."

"Yeah, but for how long?" Damon wonders wryly.

A splintered groan of agony is all Elena can manage yet, riding out residual spasms, and only the blinded witch misses the way her tremblingly delicate fingers furl harshly in folds of the hybrid's clothing for grasp, one at the joint of a hip, another at his curved flank. "It hurts," she mutters deliriously, face tight and slick in burning agony. "It hurts."

In a lightheartedly manufactured tone, Klaus pats her pale cheek patronizingly and says, "Come now, sweetheart. There you are." Ebony lashes flutter reluctantly in reaction but she doesn't otherwise acknowledge him. "Time to wake."

* * *

><p><em>The next thing she is aware of is an inescapable chill. A cold embrace which seems to seep into her bones, into her very soul, and it leaves her numb from terror. She sits up from the soil to find herself all alone. Where have they gone? Panic unfurls. They had been right here with her. Fighting. In danger. About to die.<em>

_Before she can follow the path of that thought, a wisp of light coalesces in the woods, a present warmth, fleeting and evanescent against the ever pressing chill of her world. A woman appears from within, what might be a mirror mirage of the girl, if not for the glaring difference of history, and gazes down upon her. "Elena."_

_The girl frowns, wonders why she feels so disconnected, asks, "Do I know you?"_

_"__You are very brave. You are very selfless. You do not deserve to die yet."_

_"__Hardly anyone does," she returns without thought._

_The mirror mirage smiles, just a faint flicker of familiar lips. "I can help you, Elena. We can help each other."_

_"__I thought I was dead." Yes, that's it, why she feels so numb, so hollow, as if nothing can touch her anymore._

_"__You are. But it doesn't have to be permanent."_

When does it ever?_ she thinks. Aloud, she says, "Maybe this is how it should be."_

_This earns a wistful twist of expression from the other her. "Your loved ones are headed down a tragic path, little one, and you wish to abandon them?"_

_"__No! Of course not." Her reaction is reflexive and resounding before sense kicks in. "But if I died—"_

_Gathering the swishing layers of her gown, a bell shape swallowing her lower half, Other Elena drops into a graceful crouch a little too near. "This is your chance to change the pattern. To break the cycle. _Our_ chance."_

_Perhaps it is the conviction in her mirror mirage, or fiercely earnest desire she exudes, which dispels the girl's wary reluctance, her fearful doubt. "What do I have to do?"_

_Words spoken, decision made, resolve firmed, it opens a dangerous gate. She doesn't realize this until after it is done. But the other her offers a comforting smile, a sure nod, and she lets herself feel hope._

_Then another presence arrives, shivering down her spine like an insidious serpent, shadowed and cold in a way that makes the chill of this deathly plane almost desirable. Somehow, innately, Elena knows what this being is, what it offers, and knows she wants no part of it. Good never comes from delving into darkness._

_"__You want me to make a deal?" she deduces, smoky voice softened, sending her mirror mirage a suspicious stare._

_The other her doesn't seem surprised or offended by the girl's distrust, only patient, and insistent. "I promise you, little one, together, we will not allow it to overtake us."_

_Still, despite the faith Other Elena possesses, she resists. "How do I know the cost?"_

_"__What is your love worth?" the other poses, her expression knowing._

_The girl wavers, pushes over the precipice, and then strengthens. "Everything."_


	4. Part III

.

_**Part III**_

_The most complex of homecomings..._

* * *

><p>After all is said and done and dead, and has been for awhile, life won't exactly settle down in any expected way, but it will return to a vague sense of normalcy, status quo restored. Beforehand, however, certain things have to happen, have to sort themselves into order.<p>

Crawling from the hybrid's lap that consequential night, Elena recovers fairly quickly, new and improved as she is, gasping for renewed unconstricted breath, wide eyes darting across her surroundings. On hands and knees, she catches sight of her distressed friend and clambers across the distance, her balance wobbling. "Oh, God. Bonnie."

"Elena? Are you—"

"I'm okay," she cuts in, catching the witch's flailing hand, gripping it tight in reassurance. "Your eyes. Is it still burning?"

With a wry twist of lips, Bonnie answers honestly, "Like hell."

Despite her friend's bravery, Elena can't keep her face from screwing. "I am so sorry."

"Not your fault."

_Of course it is_, she thinks, releasing her friend's white-knuckled grasp to lay her palm over the marred pair of eyes before her. The very first thing she will do with her freedom is heal the damage she's done. All of what she is capable of. It takes a moment, a plea to another presence inside her, for the glimmer of power to stir. When it does, it smoothes across the band of features like cool balm on a burn. As it dies away, she pulls her hand, and Bonnie blinks wildly at her, dark eyes in perfect condition.

"I have never felt magic like that before," she tells her, amazed, wondrous, confused.

Elena slips from her clutching grasp, rises to her feet, says only, "It's not magic."

The witch shakes her head, looking up, still on her knees. "I don't understand."

"Neither do I," Damon interjects, noting wordlessly how concerning such a situation is even as he casts an inquisitive once-over at his brother, who appears the _least_ confused, probably from whatever it is she'd done to him before her _possession_ episode.

During the close-knit group's quiet and curious exchange, Klaus uses the opportunity to corral his sister, his hybrids, his witches, and disappear unnoticed.

To retreat and rethink.

When the haggard foursome of what is left returns to the boarding house, it is to find Katherine has recuperated, fled per her well-established tradition, and structural integrity of the house is officially decimated. With nothing left to do but unwind, people scatter. The girls go home. The brothers mill about within the destruction, picking at debris, working at physical repairs, neither quite sure how to handle this unexpected reunion or how to go about fixing the emotional damage, as the girl has apparently freed Stefan from his compulsion, cured him from his monstrous addiction.

It is hard to wrap his head around. Something so complex as a personality disorder being _healed_ as simply as she had Bonnie's eyesight. Impossible. But it is what it is.

Though they keep sweeping her with furtive glances, equal parts worried and freaked, Elena behaves as if nothing has changed about her. As if she hasn't just died and come back to life. Again. Only _different_ this time. And her loved ones can't collectively decide how to address the issue. Slowly, surely, their hesitance begins to drive her to distance, because she can feel their fear, and it hurts her badly. Which is sort of how she ends up seeking out the one person on the entire planet who she should want to stay as far away from as possible.

It isn't just her conflicting new impulses that lead her to do so, yearnings that are at once hers yet not hers, so ingrained she cannot make herself completely repress it all. Partly, it's also obligation. She knows he is waiting. For her. Or maybe it's really for him. She knows he needs some kind of resolution.

Better to tackle this before he has a chance to grow impatient. That never leads to anything but horror.

So she says goodnight to her brother, her guardian, and slips away without word of where she is going or when she will be back, just in case she must make a liar of herself. She drives, and keeps driving without a preset destination in mind, and then parks and leaves her car behind to walk, led by instinct more than any substantial thought.

Eventually, she finds herself somewhere familiar, somewhere painfully recognizable. The clearing where she was first sacrificed. Where her aunt died. Where he killed her. Where the witches burned. Where _she_ and _he_ first stood in vicious resistance against each of their warring tribes. Where they stood together. A united force. A tragic end.

Of course he chooses to come to her. Here. Now.

"There's my lovely little doppelgänger." The rich lilt of his voice rubs her nerves raw, simultaneously soothing and inciting for this new version of herself, a reaction she has no freaking idea how to accept. "What brings you to the scene of past sins?"

"Feeling reflective," is all she is willing to give, her tone flat and unveiled, resisting the urge to turn and face such a predator so soon. It is easier with her eyes fixed to nothing but the vast landscape stretched out before her.

As he approaches, however, a languid prowl eating up the distance between them, predator to prey, it gets harder to ignore her primitive reflexes. In a voice so low it sends shivers across her flesh, warning frissons, he wants to know, "What are you?" And when she doesn't answer, he reconsiders his real query. "Who are you?"

This question, and all the implications his layered tone invokes, pushes her into a coldly defensive state. Turning on her heel, she meets his piercing gaze, stormy jade eyes digging deep inside of her, and sharply informs him, "Elena. Only ever Elena."

Such a reaction raises his brow. "You're sure?"

"Don't pretend otherwise," she warns, her stony expression never wavering.

As he studies her closely, he seems to see things he appreciates, red lips quirking a bit as he nears. Skipping to another point, he drawls, "You are no longer human."

"No."

He takes another step into her. She doesn't back away. Only arches for a little space. "You have changed." And this obviously pleases him.

Elena feels a shudder run through her at his words, at the many meanings in his eyes, sees dangerous things there. For her. For everyone. Her head shakes in a reflexive denial. "I'm not afraid of you anymore. That's all." But it is a lie. A piece of _her_ slips softly into the forefront of the girl, urging her to accept the truth, to be at peace with it, with who she is now, who she has always been, whether she was aware of it or not. Drawing in a deep breath, trembling ever so slightly, she reveals her true self. "I remember you now. From her lifetime. Tatia."

The hybrid goes to stone for a long moment, face blanking in surprise at her honesty, self-defensive disbelief still warring with what he knows is real. He doesn't have to react. She knows him now better than she knows herself. Thanks to Tatia. So she knows exactly what he is thinking, what he feels, why he has done what he's done, why he will do what he will, and the vital part some piece of her has played in it all.

"This is so hard," she admits, burying her hands in her pockets, huddled against the freezing night air, and angles herself away to give him time to protect himself, so he will not feel the need to lash out. "It's enough to drive somebody insane. Remembering you the way she does and the way I do all at once. All of these memories, I can't stop them. Can't get rid of them. And they're having trouble … assimilating."

When she stills, gets this look, melting her face into something soft and fond, he just has to know. Invading her personal space, he edges her shoulder to get her where he wants her, looking up at him from a hairsbreadth away. He watches her pupils dilate at the proximity, lips falling apart without her permission, heart thundering against her chest. His tongue runs over sharpening teeth at the thirst that stirs.

"Don't touch me," she says, almost offhandedly, brushing away the touch he ghosts across her cheekbone, which only makes him smirk.

Seizing the challenge, he keeps his arms at his sides as he rotates around the girl, near enough to make her pulse leap while abiding her conflicted wish. Mouth skimming dark tousled locks, he orders softly, "Show me what you remember."

Elena shifts to meet his gaze, her own brightening in accord to the intensity she finds, and opens her mouth to speak, dismiss the notion, deflect, perhaps volley a barb to make her weakening steel steady, to remind herself who she used to be, who she still mainly is. Just because she has this other _her_ inside of her now, a _her_ that has been madly in love with the monster standing beside her since the millennium before last, doesn't mean she has to fold without a fight. If she can make sense of her emotions, sort them out, she can keep this new her from completely forsaking the old Elena.

But no words rise, despite her parted lips, her indrawn breath, her desire to do so. Instead, she moves closer, lifts both hands, pressing fingertips to his temples, as he goes dangerously motionless. Though never consciously realizing she is capable of doing so, she shares a memory, one which has been echoing in her mind for days now.

New to one part of her. Old as earth to another.

* * *

><p><em>Before this day, they had only known each other by sightings, nameless strangers with faces recognizable from rare interactions between neighboring communities. He knows this girl belongs to the wolves, and such a fact might have allured him where it deterred others of his village, but he has been up to this very point uninterested in such things as a dangerous beauty. He can recall observing her habits, very briefly, because his brother has a penchant for admiring her as she comes into the trading market or can be caught at the edges of their territory borders, playing with little ones. He even knows her name.<em>

_Tatia._

_Yet, until now, he has had no reason to look twice at the slender slip of a creature._

_It begins with thievery. A boy considerably younger than himself adopts a hobby of sneaking across the border, lurking in unruly brush, so that he may watch the villagers behave as they will. He follows the men out on hunting expeditions and peeps curiously at the women who launder at the creek and bathe at the falls, sometimes bared. His clan has instilled unintriguing notions of the humans they share the land with from birth in what the boy believes merely a method of encouraging pups adhere to the pack laws and keep their distance. But his unfailing curiosity is inbred. It leads him into much trouble. Which is why he is fortunate to have a sister._

_One day, males return from a hunt particularly impressive, dragging carcasses of a family of lynx which have been terrorizing the region for moons. That evening, a bonfire of celebration gathers the village, and the boy eavesdrops tall tales of their adventure told over flowing mead where he is crouched in the shadows. These wild stories, so similar yet so different from the pack runs he's been allowed to join, incite the boy._

_In the morning, he returns to the humans, keeps at the outskirts of the woodlands, waiting for a good opportunity. Not long after dawn, two young males wander into trees, and the boy watches them lay a snare. As they do so, he listens to their jovial banter of reminiscence and feels his blood stir with desire when the fair male lifts a gleaming blade to admire. The hilt is intricate stone, steel of blade etched with witchcraft protections, which the fair male boasts has imbued his weapon with extraordinary feats._

_This is all it takes for the boy to decide what he wants, what he must have, for even though he is excellent with a bow, his father has always forbidden him from using blades, citing no need for such barbarian's tools. Why wield rich steel when you have your jowls? But the boy craves to feel the power these humans revel on about, to feel a clean blow of slicing sword, feel the impact of it vibrate up his whole arm. His sister has described such enjoyable experiences. Now it is his turn._

_When the girl comes searching for her errant sibling, scenting his unmasked trail as easily as she would a fawn, easier even, she finds him on the verge of getting his hand chopped off by an old water well._

_On the downswing of the glinting blade, she reaches them just in time, sweeping by a stoic broad-shouldered man, swiping up his holstered sword without pause, and driving it directly into the path of the boy's attacker. The sharp clang of metal on metal resounds. After she spins, parrying the fair-haired human away, and puts herself between him and her brother, she draws in a calming breath, prevents the wolf from overtaking as her eyes waver from hazel to inhuman gold and back._

_Biting out each word, she inquires, "What is it you think you are doing?"_

_The fair one's furious gaze skates first over her shoulder to her brother before aside to the dark one, flustered from anger but quelled just so from surprise. "Elijah. You let her have your weapon?"_

_The dark male pats his hip, where his leather strap has come undone, and his lips quirk. "Must have."_

_Aggravation still lingers in bright jade eyes, but it is faded by exasperation, which is tempered by amusement, as the fair male shifts his focus onto the girl holding him at bay with his brother's blade and protective fury shining in her wolfish stare. "This isn't any of your concern. Leave us be."_

_"__I don't agree." With a fluid flick of her wrist, she arcs the sword, a preparatory move of warning that comes across loud and clear. Clearer still when she advances a step. "What has my brother done to offend you so grievously?"_

_"__Stolen something precious from me."_

_Brusque, over her shoulder, without breaking eye contact, she says, "Give it back."_

_The boy huffs. "I already have!"_

_This makes her arch one fine brow. "Then what seems to be the trouble?"_

_Spurred now more from the challenging look in her eyes than his previous bother, Niklaus readjusts into a fainter hold on his hilt, moves as she moves, allows her to herd him from her kin. "He must pay for his offense. Needs to be taught a lesson."_

_"__I will teach it to him," she snaps, white teeth gritted and bared, and steps up again. "Do not presume you hold the right to harm what belongs to me."_

_He takes another sidestep, until they have spaced themselves from the well and their spectator brothers, stances on edge, resembling predator to predator. The humor in his eyes intensifies with each motion, each breath, laced now with vivid interest. "Quite the brother's keeper, aren't you?"_

_Another spike flares in her eyes and he suppresses a fey smile at her fierce expression. To the boy, ignoring his jibe, she barks, "Go home. Papa is looking for you."_

_"__Elijah," he begins, voice lilted provocatively, but she cuts into his path before he can instruct his brother to detain the boy, motions like lightning, her borrowed blade coming down with punishing force. The only thing that saves him is seeing the flash of her eyes, intuiting her volatile response, allowing him to get his own blade in the way in time._

_From here, such a situation can only escalate._

_What begins as a deadly struggle of parry and attack, swing and spin, jump and duck, little by little becomes something else entirely, almost like a mating dance, angered power of each blow, frustration of each deflection, eventually infuses with a playful razor's edge. The wolf girl is faster and stronger, and he is deeply out of his depth, but Niklaus never worries for his safety. Though she is pure liquid grace, could end him at any moment, she has held herself in restraints since the very beginning of their encounter._

_He suspects she is having as much fun as he is. Whether she wants to admit it or not. And she is the most magnificent creature he has ever laid eyes upon. As they finally part, conflict at a deadlock, attention drawn by approaching villagers, the pair of interlopers seize the brief moment of distraction to slip away. When he turns back, she is gone, as is her thieving brother, and Elijah can only shrug as he demands an explanation._

_From this day on, Niklaus is captivated._

* * *

><p>Descent into darkness, she has already taken and returned from whole, if not quite the same as she had been. She knows she will never be like she was. Knows there are just some discoveries, some explorations, a girl can't come back from. She is no longer Elena. At least, she is no longer <em>merely<em> Elena. But she isn't the other her either. If only it were so simple. No, she is something else altogether. And she knows it will take time to adjust. To get to know this new self. But there are a few truths she can't put aside.

All that is left is compromising principles.

Eventually, her resolve to keep away from him wavers, and she finds herself slipping once again from the grasp of her loved ones to seek him out. It isn't too difficult a task. Though ranks are still closed, because Klaus remains in town, constraints are not as tight as they once were, because Klaus has yet to make any overtly threatening moves. And her new state of being has led everyone to a decent berth, for sake of "alone time" they say, but she can tell their worry grows with each passing day of her disconnect. There are steps to be taken, certain repairs to be made, before she can meld her gang back into a somewhat cohesive unit. But there are other things she must sort out first. For herself.

In the aftermath of Mikael's final death, of Elena's temporary one, of Tatia's join, it is all too easy to track the typically elusive hybrid down. On the edge of town, an array of construction has been busy redeeming a sprawling condemned manor. Almost as forsaken as the haunted house. Set back into deep depths of the woods. So far, he has made no attempt to hide himself or his hybrids. In fact, he has been obvious to the point of suspicion.

What should concern her the most about this new _her_ is the distinct lack of nerves as she approaches the estate, her pace unfaltering and her heartbeat calm, as if she isn't just willingly entering the killer wolf's den. The orange tint of dying solar rays soaks her back. Activity can be faintly sensed, as if on the very peripheral of instinct, but she ignores the need to identify. Inside the manor, a maze of shadowed decrepit halls devour her whole. A vacuum of separation isolates her here within from the outside world, cut off from all those inhuman eyes watching under the shroud of trees, and what she left behind is for a fleeting moment forgotten.

It seems the cells of her are drawn closer now. A primordial instinct has laid dormant since before she was aware, and after it was stirred by his arrival, just barely a pull inside her core, easily overwhelmed by her horror, her fear, her grief, her vengeance, yet now has fully awakened and won't be denied. Which is just where her compromised principles become painfully relevant.

The unnamed urge brings her into the remnants of a vaulting parlor, aged and filmed with layers of dust, bundles of cobwebs, various debris. In startling contrast, such a room is furnished with unblemished settees of crimson velvet, smooth wooden end tables filled with unlit pillar candles, ivory wax melted into hardened mounds. Frames arc high where they are carved into the outer wall, missing their fitted windows, uncovered by the tarps which pool below, letting the last dwindling shades of daylight bathe the place.

Here is where she halts, drawing in a deep speculative breath of air, her pulse points a collective thrum of insistence. From the sudden tingling frisson which sweeps across all her nerve endings, she is no longer alone. If she ever had been to begin with.

Doubtful.

"Here we are again," is what comes to her ears, a familiar lilted drawl that wraps itself around her auditory senses, shivers down the rest of her receptors, infused with charm, with casual menace, and a mocking superiority that for the first time rings false. "Careful, love. For one who doesn't know any better, it would seem I'd gotten under your skin."

This time, her new self has already begun to settle into place, accepted as natural, and she doesn't hesitate to rotate to face the demanding pressure of his presence. Chin lifted, she purses her lips against the morbid amusement itching to quirk at the edges. "I'm not going to justify that with a response."

The smirk she rejected forms on his lush mouth where he's leant in what is supposed to be a casual stance under the main archway, shoulders shifting. "Suit yourself."

Behind him, a shock of blonde locks and pretty face brimming with disdain comes in. "What is _she_ doing here?"

"Shall we ask?"

Klaus appears mildly amused by his sister's upset, but Elena is more disturbed than she would like, not as much by the venomous spat or the glint of murder in her eyes as the vivid hurt fueling it. Though a long time coming, and deserved, her father's death is a festering wound which will not heal soon. The pang of empathy the girl suffers is one of those rare things she is discovering cannot be distinguished between sources. Most of what she feels, or thinks, or knows either comes from Elena, or comes from Tatia. Not a lot comes from both.

"I'm sorry about—"

"_Don't_," the blonde hisses, fangs elongating with her desire to rip the girl's throat out.

Elena shifts her weight from one heel to the other, stance readjusting accordingly, even though she really doesn't want to be at odds with the hybrid's sister. And faced with the results of her actions, of her differences, makes a rogue wave of regret surface from where she had worked hard to bury it deep with her own pain and confusion and fury. "Twisting your loss into anger and projecting it onto me won't make you feel any better. Trust me, I know."

"You don't know _anything_!" Because her body tries to lurch forward with vehemence, Klaus must catch her, absently snaking an arm in the path of her chest. "Do not presume to tell me what I feel, you worse than worthless little bi—"

The girl shifts again, unconsciously angling forward as the blonde had, only without any homicidal impulses, and her abrupt surge of fervency catches all the trio off guard. "But I do know. Whether you like it or not. I know _exactly_ what it's like to systematically have everything you love ripped away from you because of the choices they have made."

Silence descends. In the air between the three crackles a palpable ancient knowledge.

Sensing the change in her mood, or perhaps simply impatient, he interjects, "Rebekah. Be a dear and make yourself scarce." Crystalline eyes burn with a quiet sizzling intensity and never stray from Elena as he dismisses their unwelcome buffer.

"Of course," she sneers, glancing furiously between her brother and the girl with a growing sense of hatred. Tearing herself pointedly from his grasp, she spins and stalks from the room without a backward glance. Keeps going until she has left the manor altogether. But the sting of her turmoil echoes powerfully in her wake.

The charge of everything unsaid, everything sensed, arcs electric between the pair. Only broken once Elena forcibly jolts herself from her stupor and retreats behind the walls of defense within, impenetrable for all but the man before her. _No_. The monster.

"She won't ever forgive me."

"Does it matter?" he questions, genuinely curious, as she angles herself away from him to prowl the circumference of the decrepit parlor, her investigation an obvious avoidance.

Voice clouded, distracted, she says, "To her."

His intent gaze follows her movements closely but he remains immobile in his place under the arch. "Not to you?"

She makes another loop, still won't look his way, and answers, "No."

"Liar."

"Am I?" she returns, finally stilling long enough to sear him with a wondering look. "It's hard to tell for sure anymore. There are so many truths to differentiate now."

And there it is. The crux of the issue.

"We never had a chance to discuss the troubling sequence of events of your return." An evanescent flicker of a taunt shapes his lips. "Last time we were together."

On more solid ground, she curves around a chaise, fingertips trailing across the edge, and lets her eyes slide up to meet his stare. "You want to know what Mikael bargained."

"It doesn't make sense," he tells her, his indiscernible expression conveying distrust, and a not yet shared secret. "For him to associate with a demonic dealer, whatever it was he wanted must have been..."

The way he leaves his words purposely unfinished slivers wariness through her body. The way his eyes penetrate the protective layers of it to study what resides beneath just makes her want to eat away the space between them. _Intensely_. Which scares the girl.

"At first," she begins, "I think he wanted his wife back." Because she knows truth now, because she remembers, Elena watches him from the corner of her eye, watches the way his features draw, resisting a flinch as the impact of the blow spindles outward. Her voice is rough when she goes on. "That proved impossible. For various reasons. Then all he was looking for was revenge. Called it justice, of course. Restoring the balance. Redeeming his original sins." It is here she pauses, faces him fully, allows a bit of raw truth into her eyes, here with the harsh length of a millennium of mistakes stretched between the two souls. Soft and low, she adds, "He still never understood it was the redemption he sought that was his worst sin of all."

"What did he gain?"

"A second chance," she tells him, earning an inquisitive wing of his brow. "Not so many years after the binding, after remnants of the Original family scattered, Mikael got what he deserved. I couldn't—" She stops herself. Rewords it. "Tatia couldn't rest yet in her afterlife until she'd seen to it. Trapped on the other side, her strength didn't fade for a good while after her death. While he was still weakened from the massacre, from grief, she followed him from this place into hiding. Found a way to cross him over."

"Cross him over?" he retorts, an edged rasp of a laugh keeping his turmoil at bay. "That your diplomatic term for murder, sweetheart?"

Ignoring his humored taunt, she continues. "He was dead, Klaus. Gone. But the demon saw an opportunity with this burgeoning race of Earth creatures and offered up a deal."

"Do tell." The flippant quip of his encouragement is belied by his grip on the trim.

But she leaves it be. "It wanted influence over the rest of the Originals, to dictate how they proceeded in the world, and since Mikael was one of the creators, he could give it." Pausing, she draws in a quiet breath, catching her lip between her teeth as she words herself carefully. "All he had to do was cede his rights."

"How did it go wrong?"

"I guess his remorse got the better of him. After he was resurrected, he went for one of his most powerful allies in the witches. Tried to cast a protective net over his children. From what I've gathered, it worked enough to disrupt the demon's connection, but not quite well enough to keep it from pulling strings from afar."

"Such as?"

"I don't know." She turns, wetting her lips, doesn't manage to conceal the sympathy in her eyes. "The net only included his blood kin. But the deal never had any reach on you to begin with. So it didn't matter. Mikael wasn't your true creator. He hadn't enough claim on you to give it away." Silence falls, suffocating, deafening, until she speaks again. "I know you must—"

Abruptly, he jolts free of his masquerading Zen, volatile and violent. Advancing with that deadly quicksilver speed, he lets himself collide with her, shoves her into the motion, until he has her pinned back against a wall, hand clasping her throat. Though the plaster fractures on impact, and her body should theoretically be crushed, all she does is wince at the blow, gritting her teeth through the rattle of bone.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warns, his husky tone low and lethal, his face not even centimeters from her own.

Lashes fluttering, she lifts her hooded eyes and their equally challenging stares lock. "But you're _not_ me. And I'm sick and tired of useless pretenses."

This only infuriates him more. Like a brutal blatancy. A refusal to pretend she doesn't understand what's between them now, doesn't remember the history, all the lies and loss. Eyes yellowing with animal emotion, he pulls her into him and slams her back again in frustrated punishment. Terrifyingly calm, his voice inflects, "Do _not_ do that."

"Do what?" she prods, silky, smoky, smooth, her chin jutted. "Go on. Say it."

Long fingers flex around her throat. Not enough to cut off her airway. But enough to let her know how close he is to hurting her so she won't have power to hurt him first. "Look at me like you do. Speak as if you know who I am or what I've done. You don't."

Softly, without outright contradicting, "You think so?"

Something in him relaxes despite himself as her self-assured voice slides over his skin like cool freshwater on a warm summer night. Even so, his grasp on her tightens. However, it is no longer punishing, but an almost unconscious clutch.

"Tell me."

Adopting a slant of taunting, a second nature fallback, his expression smoothes into more recognizable sentiment. But it is almost completely hollow. And his words belie the easy tone he uses to express them. "I'm not the man I once was."

Palm to his beating heart, she urges him back a step, makes his grasp slip down onto her collarbone. Empathically, she says, "Some things have been too broken, for too long, too fragmented to be mended."

A shock ripples through him, making his body stiffen, his eyes flash, before everything coalesces into a new confidence that makes him smirk. "Let's play a game, shall we?"

Because she recognizes the gleam in his gaze, she startles. "Niko—"

"Nah-uh," he cuts her off, clicking tongue into teeth, and sidles in close, dipping at the knee to level them, canting his head in wolfish study. "You don't get to call me that, love."

As his hand travels up the curve of her neck, palming her now spiking pulse, she bats his touch away, swallows thickly. "Klaus," she stresses, concentrating through wary alert in order to bring her inflections back into safe _Elena_ territory. "You don't have to do this. I know it's not what you want."

"Wrong." The word is a succinct snap of sound before his voice goes low and throaty with menacing suggestion. "I _want_ to _play_ this game."

Even as she knows she'll regret it, she takes the bait. "What game?"

The way her accordance pulls his lips into a satisfied smile, barely there but glaring, lets her know it is precisely the opening he has been waiting for her to give. Eyes yellow, canines elongated, he shifts his grip from her shoulder to her jaw, forcing her head aside, baring her throat with a whiplash snap. Right before he strikes, his molten voice echoes in her ears, cruel and cool, provoking. "You be the beauty. I'll be the beast."

Elena is yanked up against his chest a split second after his teeth pierce skin, tendon, and his mouth latches onto her neck. A sharp gasp tears from her parted lips, eyes wide, as surprise turns to pain and panic. But as the sharp pang twists into a more fluid pain, a heated and strangely appealing discomfort, lifeblood pulling from her bloodstream in long draws, panic fades into instinctive assurance.

He has his arms wrapped around her tight as a vice, a boa embrace which constricts just short of crushing should she persistently struggle, while her spine bows within it, body pressed firmly, yearningly, stiflingly against his own.

As her head falls back, too heavy to support, her eyes flutter rapidly, breath coming in strained pants. Fingers dig into corded muscle along his shoulder, his flank, and she tries to do something. Whether it's to push him away, to wriggle free, or pull him even closer, she doesn't know. Either way, she settles for middle ground, simply holds on.

Except he keeps tugging at her, hoisting her into him with a graceless jerk every time she starts to slip, overpowered by a sudden flare of awakened longing, triggered the very second he has her in his arms. It makes his control get clouded, too distracted to realize he is taking more than he should, and a shared shudder reverberates between the two, right before they fall to the dirty floor, wracked with writhing spasms of sensation.

It isn't until her spinning head starts losing grip, as if she'll drop off the tilted world should she let go, that she breaks through the haze. Alarm stings, brings back her senses, and her knee thrusts up into his side, denting ribs for maybe a heartbeat. But the wrench of her move dislodges his dominance, lets her swing herself off the floor, so she can lever him onto his back below her, spine arching upward, ripping from his fangs. He lets go to avoid serious damage, his instinct protecting her while his senses have fled, but she still keeps her palms planted to his sternum, fingertips biting into muscle, pushing him down.

Thanks to her recent resurrection, she isn't as helpless as she used to be.

From underneath her, after his higher functions have resumed, Klaus strokes a thumb across his chin, chuckling breathily. There must be something about her expression which amuses him greatly. Fierce, she can feel. Eyes still shining golden with his wolf, he quips, "Or maybe you would rather be the beast."

Though the girl knows she should be repulsed, dizzy as she is now, what he gives her makes something primitive inside of her shiver deliciously, a remembered kindred spirit, a wolf long lost. Sensual smile made of lush blood-stained lips. Her blood. Their blood.

"What's the matter, _Elena_?" he taunts, shaping her name with wide-eyed mockery. Before his next jibe, his gaze skates briefly down, where he lies between her thighs. "Something _you_ want?"

"No," she says, voice dipping low, roughened, as he shifts beneath her, hips rubbing against her own, making her breath hitch, making her burn bad with rich restless desire, before the other her slips fully into primary place, and she finishes in a stronger cadence, "Something I have."

Caught off guard, surprise blanks his expression, banishing all his perfunctory malice, even as she dips down and crushes his mouth with her own. Fingers furl at his shoulders, digging in deep, and her knees spread, straddle widening to accommodate the sudden cyclone rhythm of her body. After his initial frozen moment of shock, he rears to meet her passion. Palming the crown of her head, he keeps her in the hungry kiss, even when he bites her lip, flips her onto her back again, tries and fails to smother her delicate body beneath him. In a rush of senseless striving, a desperate frenzy, they tug and tear at the barriers of fabric between them, contrasted wills wrestling and syncing at once.

When he first buries himself inside of her, just one fierce thrust, frenzy abruptly dies, replaced by a flare of relief, of almost satisfaction, and she wrenches her face to the side, breaking their kiss for a strangled gasp. Stunned hazel eyes find his piercing stare above, girl flitting to the forefront before acceding control to the other, who lets him capture her lips in a freshly stinging kiss.

Elena arches under him, planting her heels to the floor for leverage, propelling him right back into that urgent haze of need with merely a calculated rotation of her hips and a breathless moan of his name.

"_Niko_."

The long forgotten yet still achingly familiar possessiveness of her touches sends him over the edge of restraint, shatters his last remaining defenses.

* * *

><p><em>Running. All she is aware of is the rush. Her lungs and her limbs burn as she pushes herself to the very verge of depletion. Her heart hammers thunderously against her chest, trying to tear itself free, and it won't let her forget, even for a second, what is at stake should she not make it in time.<em>

_Branches coil into her way but she hasn't the care to deflect. Cuts slash into her skin as she races faster and faster, protruding roots catching her bare feet, yet she doesn't fall. In the distance, wolves howl for the rising moon. Their cacophony reverberates through the mountaintops. Oh, how she wishes to resound, to be free to join what remained of her brethren without the promise of losing all she loves. But it is not to be. Even if it weren't for her love, none would ever accept her now, not after she's done what she has to her own pack._

_And if sweet Rebekah has spoken truth, nothing would matter after this eve._

_Finally, finally, and not nearly soon enough, she bursts through the wooded shroud into a jagged clearing set before a tower of ancient caverns. Hot flashes of illumination dilute the impenetrable darkness of the badlands. Flames lick upwards for the starry sky, crawling along burnt foliage of ground cover, circling a witch's altar carved from stone. At the mouth of the cavern, a crescent of fire imprisons Niklaus within. She knows it. Can feel him. Even with the cloying myriad of witchcraft in the night air, ruining her olfactory senses, she recognizes the tang of his mixed blood, of his baser scent._

_There are others all around. No one else matters._

_Fisting the excess material of her skirted garment, Tatia takes a running leap and vaults herself over the first ring of fire. Rolls across the ground to dap out the flames which catch her. Inside the scorching confines of the clearing, she is seized by a pair of burly humans before she can rise onto her feet. A grip vices onto each of her arms before she thrusts herself up, twisting and lashing out to break free, and then throws herself for the mouth of the towering caverns._

_Blinding agony sears through her skull._

_With a startled scream, she drops to her knees, buckling under the pressure of magic. When it fades, only a moment later, she finds herself drawn by a fist in her long locks, registers the cool bite of an athamé at her throat, and resists her wolf's urge to attack._

_"__Do not fight me, little one."_

_The witch at her back, hovering above her, is a broad-shouldered elder. The youngest of the covens perished when the village burned. Only the most powerful have survived the vicious days of this war._

_"__It is your time to die," he informs her, neither excited nor saddened by the statement of fact, "I have seen it written. Do not fight your destiny and you may save your mate."_

_Through gritted teeth, eyes sliding up to his leathered face, she snarls, "And if I do?"_

_"__Then you will die for your crimes against nature, against your pack, and your mate will die with you. Elders tire of this battle. Some of us are of the mind that the binding is not worth what this conflict has cost. Those who set this into motion no longer thrive. We who remain see an easier solution. That abomination must be ended."_

_Tatia pushes halfheartedly at his hold. "Nik will never submit to being bound."_

_"__He has no choice." The fist in her hair tightens harshly. "You do."_

_Futility is what made this moment unbearable, is what imprinted every vivid detail of this horrible memory into her soul, where she could never escape it. As her eyes fall to the mouth of the caverns, a black abyss of darkness which the flames caging it could do nothing to alight, she feels despaired resignation overwhelm her. Break her heart for one final time._

_Tears stream down her flushed cheeks, blurring her vision, until the dance of fire blends with the ghastly silhouettes of robed witches in their awful chanting. With just the barest of whispers, of ashamed reply, she surrenders, forsaking her mate. A choked sob vibrates in her chest, scrapes her throat, comes out more like a wolf's whine when the elder hauls her to her feet and thrusts her onto the central altar._

_Beyond the din of the howling wolves and the chanting witches and her silent cries, she makes out the faint echo of Niklaus's resistance._


	5. Epilogue

.

**_Epilogue  
><em>**

_My dear, we always have..._

* * *

><p>Hours go by unnoticed. Wrapped up in one another, Klaus and Elena get lost in an endless exploration, a refamiliarizing pattern. Day becomes night and then day again. Sleep takes her off and on. Never him. He can't take his eyes off her, afraid she will slip from his grasp if he drifts, losing corporeality, and none of this will have been real. He is not willing to risk it yet.<p>

Tatia had presented an incomparable mixture of Katerina and Elena and much more. She possessed Katherine's attitude, her wits, her confidence, paired with Elena's integrity, her spunk, her compassionate heart, her bravery in the face of great fear. She was sweet, and kind in her own way, yet fierce. A warrior woman, capable of great feats, yet still just precious enough to be something in need of protection. Sexy as hell. And formidable. There would never be another like her in the world. Not for him.

Ironic, really. The way things have turned out. How far they have come. Where to. Greatly at fault though his vicious ambitions were, nothing will change the truth of it. For the catalyst that triggered such a consequential sequence of events so long ago had simply been his desire to take away her pain. The transformation between wolf and girl was excruciating to watch. He could only imagine what it was like for her, dealing with such horror of a normal occurrence from early childhood, with no reprieve ever in sight, since he had only experienced the shift once or twice himself then. With the destruction of his family, and the brewing conflicts of the region, finally something good could come of discovering his true lineage. If only he could find a way to make Tatia like him...

And so it began.

That is what started this millennium of hell for them all. He only wanted to take away her pain. As he has at last done for his hybrids. Thanks to Elena.

And now he might have a chance at reclaiming what once was lost for him. Perhaps not in the original condition, because change is irreversible, has been inevitable, but close enough to what he valued most to make it worthwhile.

When she stirs at last, returning gently to awareness, Elena feels strange. Not a bad kind of strange. Just strange. She has gotten used to waking in an empty bed in a bright but hollow bedroom to the muffled sounds of the broken pieces of her family. Used to waking in an impenetrable state of depression. Carved out. Vacant. The plague of all her many problems pressing at the confines of a bubbled mute, constantly whirring in the background of her mind, _Stefan's spiral, Damon's love, Jeremy's disinterest, Alaric's guilt, Caroline's heartbreak, Bonnie's judgment, Klaus's endless machinations_. And then there is always the more personal things like _worry, fear, remorse, despair, love, grief, longing,_ never to let her rest in peace.

So awakening to a genuine lull of contentment, to her limbs tangled with another, warm body encompassing her own, pressed to her back, soft lips ghosting along the arch of her shoulder, it takes her by surprise. In fact, it has been so long since she has been without the weight of her revolving plagues, her perpetually unsatisfied state of being, she isn't quite sure she recognizes what _this_ is. This light feeling. Freed. Not numb at all.

With a sleepy murmur of sound, she uncoils herself, stretching out her body's kinks. To the creature molded to her from behind, his lips tattooing a faint smirk into the spot between her shoulder blades, she asks, "What time is it?"

"The measure of time is wholly subjective."

A pleasant shiver ripples through her at his raspy lilt. She is looser than she has been in what seems like forever. Even if she wanted to tense up, she doesn't think she could convince her body to cooperate. It has melted. Twisting a bit, she squints towards a wall of windows across the master bedroom, gauging the position of the sun. Afternoon.

"Have somewhere to be, sweetheart?" he drawls, a query made mocking by the clear underlying message assuring the opposite.

With the other her having sunken from prominence, Elena should be rightly freaking at this perverse turn of events. Oddly enough, she is more doubtless, more without worry than she has been in a very long while. Amidst the quiet languishing of this pleasantness, she senses a grim resolve in herself. Regardless, she is appreciating the moment.

"Lots of places, actually."

Sliding a leg between her own, he bends his knee, lets her thighs instinctively pin it, before his gravitating mouth rises along the bow of her spine to find her curved jawline. Eyes shuttered, she angles her neck, obliging the trail of caresses he aims for her lips to meet him in a hot sloppy kiss. Of its own accord, a delicate hand wanders up his nape to twine in short blonde curls, urging him ever closer.

Elena shudders, arches against his chest, her body needy and yearning all of a sudden, and abruptly finds herself pinned down into the mattress, his lazy patience gone like the breakneck snap of a rubber band. There is no shame or conflict within her. Only desire.

After they make love, crimson sheets twisted, a tranquil sort of stillness takes over.

The hybrid almost succumbs to an equally foreign and familiar sense of perfection. The unimaginable medley of exhilaration and peace, of bliss, of gratification and craving his long lost little wolf taught him so many worlds ago. Something so sacred he has never had the nerve to seek it out again. Not that it could be so easily found. There will only be one woman who possesses such a key to his blackened soul. For all of eternity, he fears. Yes, he nearly succumbs. Fully. Completely. Irrevocably. But a keen awareness keeps his last vestiges of defense standing between the forsaken monster and a bright flare of hope.

There is no happily ever after for creatures like him. Or her.

Chin rested on the dip of her side, he watches the flicker of emotion in her expression as his fingertips play absently along her slender contours. She is not what he once had. But there are remnants. Painfully enticing pieces of the original goddess present the potential of a promise he has ached such a horribly long time for. And yet, even with it locked in his arms, he knows it is just as far from his reach as ever in ways.

Softly, certainly, he voices his thoughts. "You won't stay."

"I can't," she says, her voice level, no hesitation in the response at all, as if she was simply waiting in silence for the realization. When he says nothing more, his features shutting down, casting her out, she props up on an elbow, drawing in a bracing breath, meeting those piercing eyes. The arm she has spindled down her side, hooked around to his back, which had been sifting idly through his curls, it slips away almost completely, until her wrist turns to stroke down his clenched jaw, his shadow bristling at her skin. "I'm not Tatia. And you..." Her voice sweeps over him with a breathless whisper of sound and sensation. "You're not my Niko."

Jade shaded gaze flashing, he cants his head. "Elena—"

"You're Klaus," she persists, trying to explain as best she can before she loses resolve. "The monster that murdered my aunt. Who used my own boyfriend to punish me for not dying when you killed me. Who still torments me in many ways."

He screws his eyes shut as she speaks, her truth merciless, angling his head down to press his mouth into the flare of her hip as a shield. It isn't remorse, exactly, or shame for his awful actions, but rather a desolate sort of acceptance. Regret comes far too late and far too little to be significant and _only_ because he has been falsely offered a wonder he said goodbye to ages ago, a lifelong love he moved on from, an impossibility he never once allowed himself to hope for. Moreover, it is a regret mostly for what has become of a life which began full of wondrous prospects and turned so ugly.

Despite it all, Elena is kind in her strict intentions. "This can't last. We occupy totally different worlds, you and I." And that is all there is to it.

"My dear, we always have."

* * *

><p><em>Many moons beyond his oddly alluring and violent encounter with the wolf girl, Niklaus is still hopelessly enamored. Originally, he has intentions to venture into the forbidden territory to find her, an intense innate desire to see her again consuming all of his thoughts. But then tragedy strikes his family, greatly his fault, and the invisible tether drawing him across the lands becomes tainted and deformed. It is blamed for his mistake, his momentary error in judgment, impulse fixed on the wolf girl clouding his senses, allowing his young brother to persuade him into sneaking out during a ripe moon.<em>

_Full circle comes around. What will be known as the Originals are borne out of man's impure need for revenge. Abominations of nature._

_Soon, his first kill triggers his latent werewolf genes, and Niklaus is doubly cursed. The family is falling apart at the seams. Their people are turning against them. A war is brewing on the horizon between two very separate civilizations. The witches play both mediators and instigators, as divided amongst themselves on the issues as his family._

_The next eve the moon fills full, he suffers the agonizing transition, thinking this nightmare his life has become couldn't possibly get any worse. And he is awakened to an entirely new world once the pain fades. Better even than being reborn as soulless undead, more thrilling, more invigorating, fresh eyes and ears and nose, a fresh form. The myriad of scents and sights and sounds of the forest as he runs overpower him, leave him out of his mind, only inhuman._

_It doesn't occur to this animalistic version of the man to avoid the regions packed full of roaming wolves bristled for blood. His enemies. That is what the packs are supposed to be now. To be loyal to his family, it must be that way. But as he sprints through the rolling wooded hills into the forbidden mountain range, he feels a nearly undeniable urge luring him ahead._

_When they come across one another in the badlands, dawn is encroaching on night, dwindling that power-infused invulnerability of the risen moon, of the wild chase, and she is a lightning streak of snow white fur and ice blue eyes veering through the trees. Catching her is nearly impossible. So full of liquid grace, she darts aside without pause as he comes up behind her, launching through the air. He lands, rolls, comes up to find her circling him, something all too aware in those startling eyes while they rove over Niklaus._

_The lethal prowl of her movement makes him feel like prey to predator. A very first._

_Fresh tendrils of daybreak cast over treetops in rich purple shades to be swallowed by the darkness. But the moon is waning now. And so is their freedom. The change edges into each of them, disrupting their charged interaction, before human forms emerge._

_Panting breathlessly, chests heaving with the exertion, they lay sprawled in the soil, Niklaus on his stomach, Tatia on her back, not that far apart. Though once again trapped in their lesser bodies, minds of the wolf still hold strong, an instinct-driven state, both primitive and advanced. Blindly, he reaches out, catches her ankle somewhere above his bent head, and closes fingers fiercely around it. With a yelp, she flinches in response, jarred from her internal distraction, head snapping up to meet his glowing gold stare beneath a fringe of fair curls. Alpha wolf eyes burn into her as he pushes from ground onto hand and knees. Despite the dropping temperatures, palpable heat sizzles in the air, sparked like live energy, arcing sharply between the two._

_The corded ridges of his muscled body bared still quiver with the effort of transition, his red lips parted in heavy breaths, but there is an edge to the trembling she recognizes as all of that immense strength painstakingly restrained. She understands, remembers the horrid feeling of having to turn back, of losing that nightly freedom, being drawn back to a suffocating cage._

_"Half breed," she gasps, not an accusation or an insult, but an exhilarated greeting._

_Vibrations of a soundless growl rumble somewhere between his chest and his throat, warning her, so she doesn't resist when he uses his hold on her breakable ankle bone to yank the girl across the space between them. Dragging her to him with one swift tug. Pinning her there beneath his superior form._

_The instant their bodies touch, a wildfire ignites, impossible to be contained. A ring of their simultaneous cries, high and low, rough and rasped, echoes through the vast hills. Holding himself above her, he grazes skin like silk that sets his nerves aflame, shudders in a continuous wave of sensory delight at her responses, her reactions, her equal struggle. She is fierce and free in a way that invigorates him, in a way no other woman could be, and he has known a good while now her allure is inescapable._

_Powerless in the swell of desire, of desperate need and vehement purpose, he latches sharp teeth onto her shoulder and buries himself inside her as she drags bladed crescents down the arch of his back. A strangled cry escapes her as inner flesh tears. After a shiver of shock and satisfaction reverberates through their locked bodies, she curves her hands to his sternum and shoves, flipping them around. Just as she settles tense astride his hips, he swings upright with a growl, crushing her against him. Strong arms close around her to entrap the wild wolf girl._

_There is no teasing in the kiss. Not an ounce of soft and sweet. Just hot and hungry. Wet slides of tongue and rough nips of teeth. Lips crushed. Harsh. Demanding. Delicious. Sex that naturally follows is brutal, verging on violent, as preternatural passion sears. Primitive animals beneath a waning silvery moon and the touch of lunar goddess Selene, beneath the waking rays of a sun, they mate._

_Niklaus is lost amidst a dizzy whirling of new senses, new instincts, new knowledge, enveloped in the clutches of this strange side of himself, this wolf like creature within. Things are different now. The _world_ is different for him now. And he knows this moment is so much more than it would have been before. It means something else entirely than what it would have before. An explosive beginning._

_Neither is to realize such a moment is merely the beginning of the end._

* * *

><p>Days are still hectic, still riddled with problems, supernatural and otherwise, yet none of it prevents Elena from finding greater moments of peace than she had ever been able to before, of something close to happiness. Now she knows what it is to be free of spirit. No matter what chains the flesh.<p>

An impasse between the resurrected girl and the all-powerful hybrid lasts months but he is determined and she is intractable. Surprisingly, it is Klaus who surrenders his will.

Having snuck from the house, as she is apt to do recently, in order to avoid drawing more suspicion onto herself from her loved ones, who are all still concerned by her many subtle but serious changes, Elena ventures down to a cove of the falls as midnight nears. Stripping herself of every last scrap of binding attire, she shuts her eyes and absorbs the cool night air on her skin, stirring her senses awake.

Toes curling over the edge of outcropped rock, she lets white lace drop onto a pile of unfolded garments in the wheat that surrounds the natural basin, breathes in deep once, before diving into a shock of icy freshwater.

When she surfaces, it is to find a poised figure watching her from a low-level ledge, silhouetted with nightfall shadows and a backdrop of bright moonlight.

Startled, she strokes backwards a few paces, gasping sharply. "Show yourself."

"Oh, sweetheart." The rich lilt of his drawl teases her pleasure receptors even as it triggers both alarm and relief. "Skinny-dipping? Really? And here I thought you had exhausted all of your want for risky teenage escapades." A pause, he sidles forward a bit, glides into a streak of moonshine that lights his drawn features, mocking yet admiring. "Better be careful out here all alone in such a vulnerable state." The way his mouth wraps the word _vulnerable_ makes her shiver. "There are dangerous men about, you know."

"No kidding."

The wry retort of her voice echoes amidst the towering cliffs of the falls which stretch high above into darkness, below a starry sky, and draws a rumbling chuckle from Klaus.

"Are you following me?" she asks, leaving deadpan behind for a faintly arch attitude.

Amused, he counters, "Oh, don't use that accusatory tone, love. You expected me to." Long fingers move slowly along the buttons of his shirt. "Why else would you be here?"

This earns him a stern quirk of her brow. But her lips purse against a surge of words, something along the lines of _world doesn't revolve around you_, and her treading becomes quick backward slices, bringing her toward the flow of waterfall and away from his ledge. A preemptive gesture.

Ignoring her body language, he kicks off shoes and wades into the basin, just shirtless. When he reaches for her, however, she darts from his range, canting her head to let him know she isn't playing games. In response, he heaves an irritable sigh, holds up his hands in a sign of unthreatening advance. "I've only come to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" she echoes, her wary mood growing more so.

Vivid jade eyes never waver from her own. "Yes. You've won. I'm leaving Mystic Falls."

"For good?"

"For now," is his resounding reply. A tenuous beat arcs between them, bodies stilling, breaths hitched, wills waging quiet war again.

Unable to bear any more of such pressure, Elena breaks the spell, stroking sidelong. "So you'll be back to terrorize us when the mood strikes you. Great."

Without warning, Klaus pivots below the surface. Before her heart even has a chance to leap with dread, like watching ripples around her for sharks, arms encircle her waist, and she is captured. Hauled up against his body as he rises, his blonde curls drenched, she wriggles to escape, pulling at water behind her without enough traction to get free. He only holds her closer. "Let's get one thing straight."

"What?" she gasps out, gaze straying low as droplets slide across his moonlit features.

The intensity of his current expression scares an essential part of her almost as much as it thrills another. "You are in need of growth right now, of time and space, so you can settle well into yourself. But you will not always feel this way, love."

"Y—"

A hand forces her mouth closed before she can get a syllable. His gaze burns her up. "I promise you, I will return for you one day." Yet it sounds more like a threat. "There is nothing you can do to change what is."

Moments later, when his hand slips slowly from her lips to settle back at her waist, she doesn't react at all. There in the water, stares locked, they remain for a lasting time.

It is an intangible victory for Klaus. Amidst a voluntary loss. Just as he is painstakingly coming to grips with having in some way gotten back his one true love, he is forced to understand that for now it is a hollow gain. And will still be for the foreseeable future.

In the end, she doesn't give into that primal weakness awakened and oh-so appealing, but sends him away instead, as she had grimly intended. Yet not before willingly stocking him with a good supply of her blood to forge his own family of hybrids with.

Her first and last real show of faith.

**_finis_**

* * *

><p>[Look for <strong><em>Tremble<em>**'s sequel in _The Originals_ fandom: **_Burn for The Beloveds_**.]


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